pcplantdb

[Stephanie Gerson <sgerson@stanfordalumni.org>]

(just in case the message i just sent you gets buried in a big pcplantdb 
pile)

quick something before i forget...

rich wrote to me:
"I have doubts over the whole Groxis approach,
I feel that if we want to go down this line then we should
really evaluate the how groxis works first. Does it help
as a search engine, does it make it easier than a standard engine.

I'd like to get te people advocating this approach to try it out.
If it works for someone then I'd be happy to go for it.

Actually I think it would be good for you to try this out.
Being the person keenest on visual methods I think you would give the 
most sympathetic response and I also think it would help you understand 
the pros and cons of the visual methods."

so bear, you wanna test groxis out together?  and really dive into this 
whole ui?  remember, i am MORE THAN WILLING to include you in the grant 
proposals if you'd like...

allrighty this aint the last email you'll be getting from me tonite
*s


------ Original Message ------
Received: 10:38 AM PST, 12/16/2004
From: Bear K <bear@ursine-design.com>
To: Permaculture Plant Database <pcplantdb@lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [pcplantdb] PIW and the various Google engines

> Can the PIW dataset be made available for indexing and searching by 
> Google,
> bypassing the user searchform procedure, obviously.
It seems if objects in the database can be refered to using a unique 
URL (and I believe Apache can take directory info after a certain point 
in a URL and turn it into parameters for use by a CGI, omitting all the 
?label=value& syntax.)
If the site includes a link which returns links to the objects in the 
DB you want google indexed, google will follow them and index them.
The page for those objects (meaning the design for individual object 
page) should allow an obvious search box, links / canned searches for 
related info, and you'd basically have what you're looking for.

> Google results could simply
> display some portion of lines of text in the dataset with a link to 
> the PIW searchform
> where the user could initiate a series of refined searches using some 
> variation of the search
> string the user started with in Google. Or could a Google search 
> actually produce the same results
> user would get if the search was started in PIW instead of Google?
Google's algorithm is complex, and text based, but if we provide good, 
solid (textual) info, a lot of sites link to permaculture.info, the 
rank will go up, and we'll hopefully be up near the top.

> If so maybe this could lead to other funding possibilities - speaking 
> of which, PIW would be a very
> valuable tool for use in libraries - maybe this too could lead to 
> grants. If Google is scanning,
> digitising and indexing part of the Bodleian (humor mode on), maybe 
> they would view PIW as unique and
> worth devoting special attention to - they did it for ibiblio, as far 
> as I know. Though there may be a
> good number of plant databases around none of them will offer the 
> unique functions that PIW will present.
Interesting idea. I really love Google, but this whole information 
monopoly thing is kind of concerning.

Onward to span the hitherto unbridgeable divides,
Bear

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+++++++++++++++
Stephanie Gerson
sgerson@stanfordalumni.org
(c) 415.871.5683


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